Fist of Mourning?

[Caliber]

As a DM looking to probably start SoW sometime in the near future, I looked at Fist of Mourning this morning and thought ... huh? Is this an optional side-adventure for SoW, in case the PCs aren't high enough level? Maybe somewhat along the lines of Drakthar's Way, the add-on module included in the SC hardcover?

Is there another SoW module for this month, or is this month just short?

I'm puzzled.

(PS: Feel free to include thoughts on the Fist in this thread as well ... I'm always interested in getting more thoughts on SoW, since I'll be running it soon! )

 

[Scribble]

Yes it's an add on adventure if your PCs aren't high enough level yet.

The Scales of War adventure path reached the end of heroic tier in The Temple Between. It's possible, however, that your PCs haven't quite made it to 11th level yet, and that's an important milestone before pressing on. "Fist of Mourning" is the perfect bridge to lead five 10th-level characters into paragon tier and to set the stage for what comes next. Although designed as a short scenario for adventuring parties participating in the "Scales of War" adventure path, you can adapt it for use in a mountainous region of any game world and for any campaign.

 

[Rechan]

I honestly have found the SoW AP to be utterly and truly dull and without life.

I'm curious what it is that's encouraging you to run it?

 

[Caliber]

Scrib - I read that part, which in part led to me posting. Its also listed as part 7 of SoW. Would it be more appropriate to label it part 6.5? If you played through the other parts, should you be 10th, or 11th? Is another part also coming out this month? Am I making this more complicated than it should be?

Rechan - Good question. My reasoning words roughly like thus: A) I'd like to run an AP-style campaign using 4E. B) I'm already a player in a campaign going through the H-P-E series ... and some of the other players will be playing in my game, negating the chance to run those.

Thus, I'm not really looking at a bevy of options. I could try to stitch together various modules from Dungeon and other places to form some game, but lack of time is why I want to run an all module campaign. Maybe once I get into it I'll feel I have more time, but better to start with low expectations, right?

Anyway, the only products I'm aware of that would fit my current wants are SoW and WotBS. Unfortunately, I'm not sure when WotBS is due to come out for 4E (although if it ends up being before I start, I'll definitely look).

As for SoW specfically, while the first adventure doesn't seem stellar, they do appear to have increased in quality as it's gone on (or so say reviews and my quick glances through every month). Plus, since I haven't technically started yet, I get to see a bit more of what the plot will be than others who jumped into it.

 

[catsclaw227]

Interestingly, though, if you add up the XP you get for the side adventure, it comes out to roughly 5800 XP for each of 5 PCs. That's enough to go from the bottom of 10 to 11, so it's more of a full level of adventure. Though, I don't know how many of the individual encounters are optional or the PCs not likely to experience.

As for why I am running it? I have found some interesting things that I may want to expand, but more because it's framework is fine enough for me to add rich flavor myself.

There were a lot of adventures in 3.x that read poorly but were awesome to run. I have an intuition that SoW is going to be the same.